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Graphics Coming to Google Ads
Firmafest writes "New York Times reports that "Users of Google's search engine will soon see something they are not used to on the notoriously spare site: advertising with logos and graphics. And the advertisers will not be limited to America Online, whose talks with Google prompted the change in policy, according to two executives close to the companies' negotiations." The Financial Times has more on the partnership" CT: Sorry folks. My email is broken this morning and i'm not getting error reports.
I do hope that whatever Google does about displaying logos, images, etc, they do not sacrifice the decent speed the search engine has right now. I'd hate for Google to turn into another site that has good information but that stupid image from doubleclick has to load before you can see any of it.
Maybe time to find a new search engine. Anyone any suggestions?
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
Google is preparing an opening for a competitor.
It should be ammended to:
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
At least it appears that the graphics they'll be using will be limited in scope. Hopefully this isn't a precursor to flash ads and animated gifs. The day they start using pop-over flash ads is the first day of Google's demise.
Is that they are started on that slippery slope. The reason we all think that they are so cool is the lack of graphics. I remember the other search engines going down this same route.. anyone remember alta-vista ? Same thing. HotMail was ok until MS took it over. This is bad. This is the beginning of the end. Someone once said that AOL would mark the downfall of the internet if they were allowed onto it. Hmmmm sign of the times ?
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them.
That's just swell...Google joins the ranks of websites featuring obnoxious, neon pink, rapidly-blinking, "You've won!" ads.
This is a damn shame...I've always been a big fan of the fact that Google not only bucked the trend of coating their main page in ads, but was also one of the least painful websites to look at.
I hope they'll practice moderation, or at least maintain & enforce strict guidelines on what ads can look like.
Just once I'd like someone to call me 'Sir' without adding 'You're making a scene.'
Yeah, the over-commercialism of Yahoo is one of the things that allowed Google the usership that got it to the point that... it could begin the same commercial process.
Irony!
I wonder if the process will repeat itself with another search engine... ?
[but I doubt it, I think we'll all just suck it up]
MoM++ - A Classic Expanded - [Master of Magic 1.5]
http://mompp.sourceforge.net/
And will also match random non-ad content, will it not? No thank you, I'll stay with my block-it-when-I-see-it (so I never see it again) routine.
As long as Google remains a publically traded company they're going to have to keep the stock holders happy. The only way to do that is to make more money.
There's also the fact that running a major site like there's isn't free. Somebody has to pay for the fiber connections, server hardware, power, and cooling. There's also labor costs involved.
As long as the ads aren't those annoying animated banners I don't think I'll really mind.
You don't even need to use google's web page any way, just use the google search box in firefox or galeon.
Or you could just get Filterset.G.
I couldn't agree more. A good rule of thumb is that AOL + ANYTHING = crap. I literally got a knot in my stomach when I read "...America Online, whose talks with Google prompted the change in policy..." AOL killed Winamp and Netscape, and now they are threatening Google. This is a sad day, if only it were April 1st there would be hope that this is all just a lie. It is like AOL is a parasite and only remains alive by sucking the life out of everything it touches.
Google: "Don't be evil."
AOL: "Don't appear to be evil."
!hoD
They're a bit like Doubleclick, but they have their own search engine and email service too, in order to make more money.
Join the Free Software Foundation
Don't you think it's a bit of an overreaction to automatically call a switch from text ads to graphical ads "evil"? Especially when they haven't actually made the switch yet and nobody really knows whether they will at all or (if they decide to go through with it) what exactly those graphical ads will look like...
Really, it's like Godwin, only with the nazis. Don't cry bloody murder every time something happens that you don't 100% approve of (and that goes for the grandparent just as much as you).
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
I'm lazy and did not read TFA. But are we talking about a Dell Logo next to the standard text add? Or are we talking about a marketing supplied advertising graphic?
I would be fine with logos. The are small, simple, and not too distracting. The let me immediately associate a link with a corporate entity.
I along with pretty much everyone else here would throw google adds in the block list if they start tossing out animated gifs, flash, or even just tacky images. I waste enough of my employer's bandwidth with out having to deal with that crap.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
I wonder how many of your folks actually remember that Yahoo had the same status in our minds like what Google is (up to) now.
We were all in awe about the few kids that decided to start their small search engine business, and how the original Yahoo logo was drawn in Paintbrush with a mouse (and that aliased rough version was their logo for a long time before it switched to the nice refined version we see now).
Noone thought of Yahoo like some evil commercial entity trying to cram ads in your throat... But things change. And I suppose every big business is prone to go this way, Google is no exception.
I'm amazed at the leaps and bounds by which MSN Search has improved over the last several months. There have been many instances where I've done the same search in Google and MSN and MSN provided more relevant results. I like it when Microsoft gets hungry. They can actually deliver when they're forced to compete.
As long as they stick to Jpegs and PNGs, I'm not complaining. But as soon as they allow animated GIFs, I'm blocking them.
I really wanted to change my sig to something witty, but all I could come up with is this.
What is worse, is that this someone "who has root access on god knows how many Unix and Linux boxes, and whose job it is to support these boxes", had absolutely no idea what SSH was.
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
From the FT article, it's more defensive than offensive. They could not lose AOL's 10% of their advertising revenue, especially not if that meant giving Microsoft a chance to establish a real presence in the ad-driven content market.
They also have gotten themselves into some deal with AOL-TW to "jointly develop" video search with Google. That kind of "joint development" is a real loser for Google - they could just as easily build video search themselves, and own it without any encumbrance from AOL. Not only that, but they have been obligated to shift advertising back to graphic-driven ads, which strikes me a distinct downmarket move. Google's users up to now were the educated and the internet-savvy. AOL's subscribers are, en masse, essentially the opposite.
Just goes to show you - even if AOL is the dying beast it appears to be, it still commands a lot of clout. And it's a milestone in the maturation of a company when it becomes constrained by the extent of the current market. Google basically can't just leave AOL behind, so it's forced to slow down and wait for it. AOL seems to have cleaned up on this one.
I would hope they would continue to provide graphic-less ads. That way the site owner could choose what type of ads they want displayed. A potentially higher payout for ads with animated graphics (and therefore many more annoying websites).
ZEN is a prime number in base-36
Don't cry bloody murder every time something happens that you don't 100% approve of (and that goes for the grandparent just as much as you).
If you wait until someone goes "too far" before complaining, then they have already gone too far.
Communism and Laissez Faire both fail to account for the human element of selfishness in their theories. Communism fails to recognize that people need success/failure motivation, and laissez faire fails to recognize that people hoard resources, and put very little value on other people's health, wealth, or happiness.
Both systems are flawed because they fail to see trees for the forest. It's not coincidental that there has never been a true economy (of more than a couple hundred people) that is either truly communist or truly capitalist.
Additionally, there is no perfect balance, and deliberately remaining in a static system due to some philosophical conviction (e.g. "we can't do that it's anti-American) is potentially more dangerous than tweaking the system at the wrong time or the wrong way.
Navigation elements are not banners.
Site owners aren't in the business of dictating what users do. Site owners simply provide a starting point with a site design that customers can tweak through the use of browser preferences, extensions, and modifications to the way pages are displayed. It's a web designer's job to accomodate the customer, since it's the customer that has control, not the designer.
I guess that's a foreign concept to media that are used to spoon-feeding us everything from a silver platter and being in total control. Guess what. The world has changed. The customer/reader has the control now.
Don't like it? Not our fault; your site's broken. Fix it.
i am a soviet space shuttle
Image Adblockers are history.
If this is the case (which I don't believe it is) then i will disable all images. They're generally just eye candy anyway, and any site that uses them for navigation with leaving an ALT caption doesn't deserve my attention.